Spicy Pork, Mushrooms, and Noodles

I have to tell you, I've been a hot mess lately. Literally.  The blower on our house AC died the first hot day we tried to use it. The hoses on The Wife's truck's AC gave out. We've also been busy with having the roof of the garage torn off and reshingled, and we're still in the process of filling in the in-ground pool once and for all. In all that excitement, I've fallen off on giving you the High Quality Content that you all deserve. I thought for sure I had lost this particular recipe, but while The Wife was moving stuff around, it materialized. So here you have it. A simple recipe for spicy pork and noodles. We used some leftover pork from pork steaks we had cooked before. If you don't have precooked, you can just cook it up in the pan before you add in the veggies. The heat on this dish is easily adjustable. It's also easily made vegetarian by leaving out the pork and using sauteed tofu or some more veggies. 

Spicy Pork, Mushrooms, and Noodles

Ingredients

• 8 oz. Thai red rice noodles (we found them at ALDI. If you can't find them, just use fettucini)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup sliced, cooked pork
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 scallions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons spicy mustard (we used a couple packets of hot mustard from the Chinese restaurant. Look around, I'm sure you have some in a drawer somewhere. Maybe in the bottom of the lettuce crisper)
• 1 tablespoon black bean garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon sriracha
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds

Directions

1. Cook noodles a little shorter than the directions on the package call for (they will finish cooking at the end)
2. In a bowl, add the mustard, bean paste, hoisin, sriracha, pepper flakes, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Stir to mix.
3. In a large pan/wok, heat oil over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and scallions. Stir-fry for about 5-7 minutes.
4. Add the cooked pork and noodles to the pan. 
5. Pour sauce over everything and toss to coat. Lower heat to medium and cook another 3-4 minutes, tossing regularly, until the noodles are the desired tenderness.

Good times!

Stir Fry Pork Steak and Green Beans

So we're still desperately trying to work through last year's produce to make sure we have room for the new stuff from the garden. In this case, we needed to use up some surplus green beans. We had a couple nice pork steaks in the freezer that worked perfectly.  I can't promise you'll have all these ingredients on hand. Black bean garlic paste and hoisin sauce are not something every home keeps in stock. If you don't have those, you can probably get away with teriyaki sauce, or a molasses based barbecue sauce. Or just drown it in Sriracha, which is never wrong. This ended up being a very tasty and fairly quick meal. Over rice, it was filling and a fair substitute for ordering out Chinese food for dinner.  As always, notes are in blue.

Stir Fry Pork Steak and Green Beans

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons sesame oil (in a pinch, vegetable oil would work, but you'll lose the wonderful flavor you get from the sesame oil)
• 1.5 lbs. pork steak, cut into 1/2" wide strips
• .5 lbs. green beans, cut into 3" pieces
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (we used reduced sodium. Otherwise I blow up like a balloon.)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon black bean garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1-1/2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1-1/2 tablespoons cold water
• Cooked white rice, for serving

Directions

1. In a wok (or whatever large pan you have) heat oil over medium heat. 
2. Add garlic and onion. Stir fry for 3-4 minutes or until the onion starts to get tender. Do not let the garlic burn.
3. Add the pork and stir fry for another 5 minutes or so, or until the pork is not longer visibly pink.
4. While the pork is cooking, in a bowl, mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, pepper, black bean paste, and hoisin sauce. 
5. Add the green beans to the wok, along with the sauce mix. Toss to coat evenly. Cover and cook on medium for 5-6 more minutes. There will be a fair amount of liquid in the pan. This is fine.
6. While everything is cooking, in a small cup, mix the corn starch and water. 
7. Take the lid off the wok (I feel I have to emphasize taking the lid off or some smartass will just pour the cornstarch over the lid) and add the corn starch mixture. Stir contents of the pot until sauce thickens. Turn off the heat.
8. Serve over rice. (I imagine this would be good over rice noodles as well. Or even without rice.)

Good times!

Mapo Tofu

     It's always nice to find simple recipes in cooking magazines. Half the time they require ridiculous ingredients with insane direction. "Lightly lambaste a pre-pubescent hedgehog for 16 hours before braising another 12 hours in a reduction of leprechaun tears and the sweat of an owlbear." I hate that sort of shit. Give me a nice simple recipe involving simple ingredients. If I can bang it out in under 30 minutes, that's even better. This is one of those recipes. This came together in about 20 minutes and was plenty tasty. I like that options for the harder to find ingredients were provided. Naturally, I took liberties with the recipe. The end result was plenty tasty and very filling. We'll call it a winner and add it to the rotation. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Mapo Tofu
via Food and Wine Magazine

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon canola oil (omitted)
• 1/2 lb. ground beef chuck (85% lean) (That didn't happen. I went with about a pound and a quarter of 73/27 ground beef)
• 1/2 pound ground pork (omitted. I figure I'd go straight beef for this)
• Kosher salt (I try to limit salt intake, so I omitted it)
• 2 Tbsp. chile bean sauce, preferably tobojan dijan (Nope. I did have black bean garlic sauce, which I used instead)
• 2 Tbsp. homemade sriracha. Use store bought if you prefer.
• 2 Tbsp. hoisin sauce or tenmenjan (soybean paste) (We had the hoisin on hand so that's what we used.)
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
• One 14-ounce package soft tofu, drained and finely diced
• 1-1/2 tsp. cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 scallions, finely chopped
• white rice for serving

Directions

1. Heat a large pan until hot (if you can heat it until it's cold, you've done something wrong). Add the oil, followed by the beef and pork (since the beef was a touch fatty, I just omitted the oil). Season with salt and cook over high heat, stirring and breaking up the meat until crumbly and lightly browned, about 3 minutes (if you used higher fat meat like we did, remember to drain the grease)
2. Stir in the chile-bean sauce, hoisin and soy sauce (and the sriracha, if you're using it) and cook, stirring for 3 minutes; gently fold in the tofu.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch into the water. Add to the pan and simmer until the sauce thickens, about 2 minutes.
4. Stir in the scallions and serve.

Good times!

Steamed Pork Buns (Char Siu Bao)

     Some days a simple idea completely explodes into a full-blown project. This was one of those days. I wanted to make a simple Chinese pork and cabbage soup. The thing is, when I have soup, I want bread to go along with it. Since this was a Chinese soup, I wanted a Chinese bread. I made the mistake of using the first recipe I found. I found a recipe for char siu bao. For thirty-plus years I just called them steamed pork buns. I figured I would give them a go. I loved them when I was a kid. Don't get me wrong, they came out great and tasted absolutely fantastic. The problem was that this recipe was a Colossal Pain In The Ass. I should have known I was in for trouble when the recipe book didn't have any pictures. What book you say? I set the Way-Back Machine and consulted my copy of The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines. I didn't let small problems like not having the right ingredients or even the right equipment stop me. Some people suggested baking these, but I grew up eating them steamed, so that's how I was going to make them, at least this time. They came out exactly as I remembered. Soft and chewy, the dough a bit sweet and the filling a bit savory. Was it worth the effort? I'd say so. The wife and I ate 10 of them between us for dinner. As always, changes and notes are in blue.

Steamed Pork Buns (Char Siu Bao)
via The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines

Ingredients
Bread Dough

• 2 packages fast-rising yeast
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup milk, lukewarm
• 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling

• 1/2 pound Chinese Barbecued Strips (char siu), chopped into medium-small dice (I was feeling industrious, but not industrious enough to make a separate pork dish for this. I just browned up 1/2 pound ground pork)
• 2 green onions, chopped (accidentally used some of the green onions I needed for a soup recipe. I wound up using 4 green onions here)
• 1/4 cup fairly finely chopped Chinese celery cabbage (Napa) (this totally didn't seem like enough cabbage. I used a full cup)
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce (none in stock. I used an equal amount of black bean and garlic paste)
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• pinch of salt (omitted)
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce (I used regular soy sauce)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water or cold chicken stock

Directions

Dough

1. Sprinkle yeast over the lukewarm water and then add the sugar. Allow to stand and then stir in the yeast (this was pretty amusing to watch. I stood there like a total dope watching the yeast foam up for about five minutes)
2. Add the milk. Be careful that it is lukewarm or tepid, about 90F. Stir in the flour and knead until smooth (much like I always do, the recipe suggests using a Kitchenaid if available).
3. Place the dough on a plastic countertop and cover with a large metal bowl. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, around one hour. When properly risen, punch the dough down and allow to rise another 30 minutes (be ready, this dough inflates spectacularly when it rises. I lifted the bowl after an hour and feared I would be overwhelmed with dough). 

Filling

1. While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Combine all the ingredients in a wok, except for the dissolved cornstarch and chow (stir-fry) just until the mixture is hot (I didn't use a wok. I just stir-fried everything in my non-stick skillet) Thicken with cornstarch and allow the filling to cool.

   

   Totally not the filling the recipe calls for.

Construction

1. Punch the dough down and knead for 1 minute. Roll the dough into a snake about a foot long and divide the dough into 24 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and then roll out into a 4-inch circle.
2. Fill each bun as you roll it. Place a little more than a teaspoon into the center of the dough circle. With your fingers, gather the sides of the dough around the filling in loose folds, meeting at the top. Pinch the dough so it will hold (I wasn't terribly detail-oriented at this point. I just sort of flattened out each ball by hand, dropped in the filling and pinched it closed) 



Please make note of the lack of uniformity of size and the fact that I have not laid them on the waxed paper the right way. I can say with total sincerity that I gave not a single damn regarding these inconsistencies. 

3. Place the filled bun upside down on a 2-inch square of waxed paper and place in a bamboo steamer (not only do I not own a bamboo steamer, I didn't turn those little bastards upside-down. Totally forgot. I have no regrets. They just sat on the counter for a while)
4. When all the buns are finished, cover the steamer with the lid and allow the dough to rise until not quite doubled in size. In about 30 minutes, the dough should spring back slowly when pushed gently with your finger (yeah, still don't have a bamboo steamer. Fortunately, the kitchen was hot and humid as hell, so I'm counting it. The dough did spring back when pushed, so it was all good.)
5. Steam them for 15 minutes (I totally faked the bamboo steamer. I took a big pot and filled it a quarter of the way with water and brought it to a boil. I then hung my Dollar Store Chef Basket over the boiling water. Working in batches of 6, I just loaded the dough balls on their wax paper into the basket and balanced the lid on top)

   

   It worked, too! So there.

Good times!

Monday Recipe: Pork Mushroom Stir Fry

     Stir frying is always a favorite in my house. It's inexpensive, fast and generally simple. If I'm cooking mid-week, stir frying is always a viable option. This particular recipe calls for shiitake mushrooms. Those are not middle class mushrooms in my humble opinion. Would I love to cook with them? Absolutely. However, shiitake are going to set me back about $5-7.00 per pound wholesale. I can find plain old criminis for $1.00 per pound most days. What I'm going to lost in flavor I'm gaining in saving five bucks every time I make this dish.

     I wish I could remember where I found this recipe. Once I move a recipe into my personal recipe book, I generally lose track of the source. I should probably start making note of that sort of thing. Anyways, it likely came from Bon Appetit. If somebody finds the source, let me know and I'll give credit where credit is due.

 

Pork Mushroom Stir-Fry

Ingredients 

• 1 lb. Pork cutlets, cut into 2 inch long, ¼ inch slices 
• 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil 
• 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger 
• 12 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, thickly sliced (I never have these in the house. I generally wind up using baby bellas, button or even just canned if nothing else is available.)
• 8 ounces fresh green beans 
• 1 half onion, chopped 
• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, divided 
• 5 tablespoons hoisin sauce 
• 2 teaspoons chili-garlic sauce 
• ¼ teaspoon Chinese 5-spice powder 

Directions 

1. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper 
2. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger and mushrooms. Stir-fry until mushrooms are tender (about 3 minutes). 
3. Add pork, stir-fry about 2-3 minutes 
4. Add green beans, onion, cilantro. Stir-fry 2-3 minutes 
5. Stir in hoisin, chili-garlic sauce and 5-spice powder. Saute until beans are crisp-tender. 
6. Serve over rice. Garnish with green onions and fresh cilantro, if desired.

Good times!